


take me into your loving arms

by anythingbutplatonic



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst, Boyfriends era, Discussion of an eating disorder, Discussion of food restriction as a form of punishment, Discussion of threat of involuntarily hospitalization, Domestic Fluff, Emetophobia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Height Differences, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, In which Robert and Aaron love to snuggle, Intimacy, Like Father like Daughter, M/M, Nightmares, Non-Sexual Intimacy, On the Run, One mention of the Divorce that I choose to pretend isn't happening, Original Character(s), Panic Attacks, Physical closeness, Post-Prison, Reunion 2.0, Reunion 3.0, Snuggly Husbands, Sofa cuddles, They are cute and adorable, and like father like son, but will kill anyone who dares to say anything to anyone about it, snuggles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:54:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23720023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anythingbutplatonic/pseuds/anythingbutplatonic
Summary: Over the years, throughout the many ups and downs, one thing has always remained true; they feel safest and most at home in each other’s arms. They wouldn’t have it any other way.
Relationships: Aaron Dingle/Robert Sugden
Comments: 21
Kudos: 66





	1. take me into your loving arms

i.

Aaron thrashed in his sleep again, whimpering loud enough to wake Robert as suddenly and instantly as if someone had yelled in his ear; his heart started, lurched, eyes fixed in the semi-darkness on Aaron’s quaking figure under the covers, forehead shining with sweat and his face contorted into an expression that Robert swore caused his stomach to twist with the actual, physical pain of being punched.

Because that’s what it felt like, now, it had felt like for months. Aaron’s pain had become his own, and what he felt, Robert felt just as viscerally; or so it seemed to him, each time he felt a phantom stab of pain in his left forearm where the deep pink scar on Aaron’s was, or a ghostly voice that sounded like Gordon Livesy echoed inside his head when he knew it was ever-present in Aaron’s.

Aaron suddenly turned onto his side, his whole body snapping up into a ball as if he’d been burned; knees shoved under his chin, trying to make himself as small as possible even in sleep, protecting himself from an invisible foe that Robert couldn’t see.

Then he cried out, a horrible strangled half-scream that set every hair on Robert’s body on end, and he reacted without thinking; he sprang, shoving Aaron hard onto his back with one hand, the sudden force of movement waking him instantly with huge, gasping breaths and round, fearful eyes shining wet and glimmering with pain.

“Robert,” Aaron whimpered, arms flailing against the pillows as he came fully out of sleep - and then he started to sob, tears cascading down his cheeks and soaking the collar of his pyjama shirt, a ratty old grey thing with a large hole in one of the armpits that Robert remembered he’d snorted at when Aaron had put it on earlier that night. “Robert, Robert-”

“Sssh, sssh sssh,” Robert soothed, reaching up to bury his fingers in Aaron’s hair and stroke through the sleep-mussed curls, rough with frizz but silky soft against his skin at the same time. He kept his voice low as he spoke. “It’s okay. It’s alright, it was just a dream. Just a nightmare. S’okay.”

What Gordon did to him is real, though, his mind supplied bitterly, and a flare of anger rose up within him, hot as a live flame. He hated the man. Perhaps there had never been anyone he’d hated more, except for maybe his own father.

“M’scared of him, Robert,” Aaron sobbed, crying into the pillow, which kept his voice muffled but still audible. “He’s gone but I’m still so scared.”

“I know you are,” he replied quietly, matter-of-factly, without judging or bias. “I think that’s understandable, no-one will judge you for that.” A beat of silence followed, Robert keeping up his carding of Aaron’s hair, the way one might comfort a crying child but - more. Always so much more.

He dropped his hand suddenly, opening up his arms wide. “Come here. Come here, right up next to me, as close as you can get.”

Aaron looked up through wet eyelashes, wary, then wriggled across the gap between their bodies, shifting so that they were toe-to-toe and he was so close he could feel the heat radiating off of Robert’s sleep-warmed body. 

“Closer,” Robert whispered, “like this.” He reached for Aaron’s arms and wrapped them around waist, pressing his palms flat against the expanse of his back, bringing their hips and chests together. He wound his own arms around Aaron and pulled him towards him, then threw one of his long legs over his hip, drawing him so close that Aaron lay against him from crown to toe and their hearts beat in synchronisation between them. 

Robert craned his neck and rested his chin on the top of Aaron’s head, dropping down momentarily to press a quick kiss there. 

“There,” he said, “is that better?”

“Yeah,” Aaron snuffled gratefully, his hands clenched into fists on Robert’s chest. “Yeah, loads. You’re so warm, it’s - it’s nice.”

“Good. That’s good, Aaron,” he wriggled closer, pressing his cheek to the top of Aaron’s head, and tightened his arms around him. He let out a contented sigh. “I just want to keep you safe.”

“I know,” Aaron said, “And you do.”

“He won’t hurt you ever again,” Robert said quietly. “I promise.”

But the promise was unheard, because Aaron had already fallen back to sleep.

ii.

Waking up in a sun-warmed room as the first light of morning started to creep through the curtains, the duvet tangled around his shoulders and the heavy, deep breaths of the man he loved filling his ears, Aaron thought he’d never had a better start to any kind of day. Not in a long, long time at least. 

One arm was slung around Robert’s waist, fingertips brushing the material of the pyjamas he’d borrowed from him the previous night, just under his ribs and he could feel the rise and fall of his breath, a soothing rhythm that reminded Aaron of where he was, who he was with, and how everything that had felt so lost and directionless for months and months had finally sharpened back into focus with one clear sight eclipsing everything; Robert.

Robert, his Robert, his husband, back home. With him, where he belonged. 

He moved closer and wound his arm tighter around Robert’s waist, burying his nose in the crook of his neck. Call him weird or sentimental or soppy, but he’d always loved the way Robert smelled; clean, fresh shampoo, heady cologne, the fabric softener he always insisted on putting in the washing machine even though Aaron moaned that it made his clothes smell like a flowerbed. Warm skin and freshly-brewed strong coffee, real Italian leather and the citrusy spray he always cleaned the inside of his car with, reminding Aaron of oranges and lemons ripening under a hot sun somewhere tropical and far away from Emmerdale, somewhere they might go eventually, just the two of them...

“Stop sniffin’ me, it’s a bit creepy,” Robert mumbled sleepily, as always sensing Aaron’s presence in that particular way that he did, and always had. “If the guy I pulled last night turns out to be a cannibal, I might have to go back to Mike the chef.”

“Ha ha,” Aaron said sarcastically. “Don’t even joke about that, as if I’m ever lettin’ you go again - which is never, in case last night wasn’t enough proof for ya.”

“I remember,” Robert sighed fondly, and Aaron knew there was a hint of a smile around his lips. “You shouted at me in the street.”

“Yeah, bit embarrassing that, wasn’t it?” Aaron joked, fake-cringing, and Robert’s chuckle vibrated through his chest and into Aaron’s own. God, he’d missed that sound, deep and rich and mellow like honey. 

“Not to me,” Robert said seriously, quietly. “I’ve - I’ve never felt more special than that moment when you opened your mouth and started saying all that- what you said about me. You make me feel - well, not an entire waste of space.”

“I love you, ya muppet,” Aaron said simply, kissing the back of Robert’s neck softly. “What d’ya think I went to all that trouble for yesterday if I didn’t?”

“You’re Aaron Dingle and you like a bit of drama?” Robert suggested. 

For that, Aaron kicked him lightly in the back of the shins. “Oi!” Then he kissed Robert’s neck again, harder, letting his beard scrape against the sensitive skin at the nape of his neck, where the ends of dark blond hair curled in close like wisps of cotton. 

“Love you,” Robert murmured. 

“I love you, too,” Aaron said back, resting his cheek on the jut of Robert’s shoulder, letting the beat of his heart in the line of his jaw lull him back to an easy doze as he thought of the silver rings stashed away beneath an old cushion in a drawer, and the question he was going to ask Robert when he woke up for real in just a few hours’ time.

iii.

The sounds of the woman they’d rented the cottage from receded slowly as she turned in for the night, the sound of the door closing between her house and the one in which they were currently staying letting a wash of relief flood over their tensed, highly-strung bodies. They lay side by side, cheeks pillowed on folded arms, just looking at one another, neither daring to be the first one to slip into a slumber lest they waste the precious minutes and hours they still had.

It was early evening still, warm orange light washing the room in a golden haze and the sound of twittering birds could be heard outside the window. The only other sound was the faint ticking of a clock, the burble of water pipes, and the sound of their breathing in unison as they drank each other in.

The bed was small, just large enough to fit them both if Robert drew his knees up like a cat curling up in the sun; their socked feet brushed together in a way that made Aaron giggle when the sensation made his toes tickle, and his nose wrinkled up with mirth whenever it did. It was a sight that drew an ever-wider smile from Robert, who stared and stared at his husband without so much as a blink or a flutter of an eyelash, wanting to commit every detail of his view to memory, just in case...

...In case it all went wrong.

The thought was painful, unbearable. Optimism and hope had to mask the fear that had settled in Robert’s stomach like a stone, threatening to bring him to his knees at any moment. He’d made Aaron stay in the living room under the pretence of getting him to relax while he made them brews, so he wouldn’t see his hands shaking as he poured out coffee and stirred spoons of sugar into the mugs. And he’d ran the taps in the sink at full blast and pretended he was washing his hands afterwards, when in reality he didn’t want Aaron to hear him being sick because of the anxiety that buzzed under every inch of his skin.

“What are you thinking about?” Aaron asked. 

“You,” Robert said sincerely. “Us. How much I don’t want to lose any of this...time, when we’re on a clock.”

“We won’t. We’ll be together forever soon, you and me, and it’s - I’m got gonna lie, Robert, it’s going to be absolutely terrifying, at least at the start.” His lips quirked up into a slight smile. “But we’ll have each other. That’s what matters. That’s all that matters now, yeah?”

“You’re the very best part of me, Aaron Dingle,” Robert said hoarsely, reaching to take Aaron’s hand. He reciprocated, twining their fingers together so tightly that nothing could get through them, not even the evening half-light from the sun that was slowly setting behind the window blinds. Their matching rings shone, glinting like cut diamonds, throwing sparkles of light into their eyes. 

They saw nothing but each other, the vast, unknown future ahead of them another day’s problem. For now, they both rested their gaze on their joined hands, keeping themselves connected and intertwined, until the very last minute when they’d have to break apart. 

But they’d never be apart again, not for the rest of their lives.


	2. kiss me under the light of a thousand stars

**iv.**

When the bedsheets stopped smelling like Robert, Aaron slept in his dressing down, the thick quilted blue one that was so long, it hung down almost to his ankles. It was warm, and it had had Robert’s shower-fresh or sleep-tired skin next to it last, and if Aaron really tried, he could still smell the scent of aftershave and moisturizer on the collar of it. It was like having Robert himself wrap his arms around him in bed, holding him close, and it lulled him to sleep if he concentrated long enough on the memory.

Next, it was Robert’s old jumpers, the ones he couldn’t bear to throw out even though he’d had a hissy fit initially and swore to throw everything in the bin. An old, bobbly grey thing that was too small for him now but fit Aaron like a glove, and the sleeves so long he could cover his hands with them entirely, tucking them under his chin like Seb did when he slept in his cot, curled in on his side like a kitten. 

Then, when that no longer satisfied him or made the pain left behind in Robert’s absence dull and bearable, he resorted to sleeping in Robert’s leather jacket, the shoulders too wide and the torso too long but still feeling like a warm cocoon of an embrace that might have been from his husband himself, if were there to give it to him.

It was close enough. It was all Aaron could manage to conjure up, thinking of Robert alone in a washed-out grey cell hundreds of miles away, and he hadn’t even had the guts to talk to him and tell him what was going on inside his head before he’d sobbed in his arms on the last day they’d ever seen each other, begged him not to forget him and sent him a divorce letter in the mail.

He missed him. He missed him so much it was like he had a permanent stomachache, always there in the background of everything he did. It was a physical throbbing that was left behind when part of himself, of who he was, had been torn away and was now unreachable. Robert had gone where Aaron couldn’t follow him, help him, or hold his hand and tell him things were going to be okay - all things he would have done, things he’d have done gladly and with honour, because Robert was his husband and it would have been his privilege to take care of him. 

Like Robert had taken care of him, all these years. 

He didn’t care if Robert didn’t think he deserved it. He’d do it regardless, because that was what you did when you loved someone as much as Aaron loved Robert, and if he didn’t, he’d be letting the man he loved down.

But he’d never gotten that chance. 

And now everything was only parts of half a life, because Aaron was only half a person without him.

**v.**

Robert was warm, steady and heavy against him, his breaths a calming wave of sound and sensation as Aaron let himself sink further into the sofa, stretching out a little so that Robert could lay his head more comfortably where it was pillowed on his stomach. It was softer now, with age and needing to take things steady - Aaron was softer and greyer all over now, a semi-permanent ache in his shoulders that he was told was early onset arthritis - but Robert didn’t seem to care. He was happy as a cat dozing on its favourite chair, hands curled in Aaron’s jumper and eyelids fluttering with half-sleep.

And to think, Aaron had almost never got to experience this again, this physical closeness that had always characterised him and Robert, the way each other’s presence always seemed to gravitate towards one another even if the room was full of people and the way things just felt...normal when he was there. Right. Easy. The way things were always supposed to be.

It had been almost eight years, but the feeling was the same. _Home._

“I missed you so much, before,” Aaron said absently, stroking up and down Robert’s shoulder in a random rhythm, “I missed having you close, just holdin’ ya like this. Probably the thing I missed the most, really. Missed having your body next to mine, simple stuff. Cuddlin’ watchin’ crap telly, a goodnight kiss, a hug before you left for work in the mornin’...”

“I’m sorry,” Robert whispered. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to give you all of that. I missed doing all of those things with you, too, and remembering them, how it was...on the worst days, it’s what kept me going. The memory of you. How it used to feel before I threw a spanner in the works of everything good we had going for us.”

“Robert, don’t say that,” Aaron pleaded. “You didn’t mess everything up, okay? It was more like...a break forced on us by stuff outside of our control. And we both did things we shouldn’t have, alright? I’m as much to blame as you are, maybe more because I didn’t try hard enough to knock some sense into ya when you thought cutting us all off was a good idea.”

“What, you would have picketed the prison until I had no choice but to talk to you?” Robert asked, a glimmer of humour in his voice. Aaron had missed that, the sarcasm, the amusement at his own little jokes that was both incredibly nerdy and incredibly endearing. 

“Maybe. Camped out, even played that stupid Adele song over and over on a loudspeaker if it meant you’d come and see what all the fuss was about.”

“It’s our song!” Robert huffed indignantly, “We have a song, Aaron, however much you want to ignore that we do.” He went quiet, then spoke again, voice small and soft. “I heard it, once, in the prison. One of the officers had a radio in reception and it came on. It was faint, but I heard it, and it was like...it was our wedding day all over again, and you were dancin’ in my arms even though you said you weren’t...I hadn’t felt that happy since before I went inside, that day when I heard our song. It brought me so much peace, but I also ended up a right mess after it. I refused meals for two days, till I was so dizzy I couldn’t stand up straight, and it reminded me of where I was and what the reality of the situation was really.”

“ _Robert_ ,” Aaron gasped, his body tensing. His hand froze where he continued to stroke Robert’s arm lovingly, the fingers trembling. His voice came out strangled when he spoke. “No. Please tell me you didn’t do that on purpose more than once...the idea of you hurtin’ yourself the way I did...”

“It happened for a few months,” Robert admitted, “until I ended up losing enough weight for prison welfare to notice, and I got sent to a psychiatrist. Beatrice. She said I was a lost cause. She wanted to section me.”

Aaron made a low moan of pain that sounded like a wounded animal; it tore from his chest, animalistic and anguished, and foreign to his own ears even as he made the sound. Horror seemed to fill up every inch of space his body possessed; the idea of someone taking Robert, _his_ Robert, broken and vulnerable and suffering, and locking him away in a sterile hospital because they thought he was mad...

It was unthinkable. Unbearable. 

“Stupid useless prison system,” Aaron ground out between clenched teeth, shaking his head in disbelief. “I’m so sorry, Robert. If I’d been able to help ya...I’d never let them lock you away like that, I’d’ve done anything I could to get ya the right help...”

“I know,” Robert said softly. “I know you would have, Aaron.” He turned over then, looking up at him with huge, shining eyes, the colour of which Aaron had memorized down to the last specks of green and gold. It had been easy, because Robert’s eyes had been copied exactly into the face of their son, whom Aaron adored more than most anything else other than Robert himself. “I really, really missed you.”

A soft, gentle smile crossed Aaron’s face. Easy and content. “I really, really missed you, too.”

**vi.**

“Daddy,” a small voice said, a sharp little finger poking him in the cheek. “Daddy, Seb and Papa fell back to sleep and they’re _snoring_. It’s too _loud_.”

Robert blearily opened one eye, saw the scrunched-up face of his daughter looking back at him, her lips turned down in a pout. “Is that so?”

Ellie nodded emphatically. “Like Uncle Sam’s pigs. _Oink oink oink,_ ” she giggled, “Papa and Seb are like the three little pigs from the story!”

“Mmm, I suppose they are,” Robert mused, lifting his head up from his pillow to look over to the other side of the bed, where indeed his husband and their fourteen-year-old son were fast asleep - again - Aaron’s mouth open in rumbling snores while Seb snuffled and snorted, his strawberry-blond head resting against his father’s dark one. They were like two peas in a pod, Robert often thought, Aaron and Seb, like twins almost. He bit back a wide smile at the sight, how warm it made him feel in his chest. His husband, his son, and his daughter pressed in close to his side, four of them piled into their bed early in the morning on a lazy Sunday. _His family_. 

“Daddy?” Ellie asked, her little hand reaching up to touch the side of his face, his cheekbone. “Why do you look like you’re sad?”

Robert shook his head, took his daughter’s hand and kissed the middle of her palm, inhaling the sweet baby-pink scent of her skin and fixing her with a steady gaze that was as serious as he could manage. “I’m not, princess. I’m happy. You remember how daddy had to go away for a long time before you were born, and that made him really sad?”

Ellie nodded. She’d been told the story before, the abridged version of her parents’ history, so that she’d understand why sometimes his moods changed or why he wanted to sleep all day or had to take special pills she wasn’t allowed to touch, pills that made him better so he could be with them. 

“Well, now I have your Papa, and Seb and you, and thinking about the time when I didn’t have those things is hard, and when I look at all of you,” he pulled lightly on one of her curls, frizzy and wild so like Aaron’s, “I remember how lucky I am that I have such special people to look after me.”

“Like Papa looks after you, ‘cause you’re _husbands_ ,” Ellie said, pronouncing the word _husbands_ carefully, the extra ‘s’ making it difficult with her baby teeth and slight lisp. 

Robert looked at Aaron again; he’d shifted, one arm slung around Seb’s rising and falling chest. When he woke up, he was sure Seb was going to be mortified. He chuckled to himself. 

“So, what should we do, Eleanor?” Robert asked her pensively, turning onto his stomach and resting his chin on top of folded hands. “Wait for them to wake up, or...” he raised an eyebrow, “pancakes with extra cream and strawberries just for the two of us?”

“Pancakes!” Ellie crowed, wriggling like a worm under the duvet, bare feet kicking with glee. If Seb had somehow inherited Aaron’s scowl, then Ellie had got Robert’s sweet tooth. Aaron blamed it on all the times he’d found him and their surrogate inhaling a packet of chocolate digestives between them, one claiming it was ‘stress eating’, the other indulging her hormones going rampant for sugar in her sixth month of pregnancy. 

Only one of those reasons was deemed as valid.

“C’mon, then, little squirt,” Robert said, using the old nickname she’d had as a baby, swinging himself out of bed and swooping to put Ellie on his hip, where she grabbed onto the collar of his pyjamas and grinned like a cat who got the cream. “We _might_ leave the sleepyheads some toast when they eventually wake up, yeah?”

“Yeah!” she agreed. 

Robert carried her towards the door; when he reached it and pushed it open gently, he turned back for a minute to take another look at Aaron and Seb, still dead to the world. Ellie pressed her cheek against his neck, her curly hair tickling him where it sprung out in various directions. 

“I love you, Daddy,” she whispered suddenly, her little voice loud in the quiet of the room. Robert pressed a kiss to her head, still gazing upon Aaron and Seb, his whole world and his pride and joy, and the soft warmth of the most precious thing in the world heavy in his arms. There was a reason why they’d given her the middle name Hope, and for Robert, she lived up to it every day - her, and the rest of his family, and the second - third - chance he thought he’d never get.

_Home_ , he thought. _This is my home. And I will cherish it forever._


End file.
